Part 12 (1/2)
And Mrs. Falchion? As the burial service was read, she had stood, and looked, not at the bier, but straight out to sea, calm and apparently unsympathetic, though, as she thought, her husband was being buried.
When, however, the weighted body divided the water with a swingeing sound, her face suddenly suffused, as though shame had touched her or some humiliating idea had come. But she turned to Justine almost immediately, and soon after said calmly: ”Bring a play of Moliere, and read to me, Justine.”
I had the packet her supposed dead husband had left for her in my pocket. I joined her, and we paced the deck, at first scarcely speaking, while the pa.s.sengers dispersed, some below, some to the smoking-rooms, some upon deck-chairs to doze through the rest of the lazy afternoon.
The world had taken up its orderly course again. At last, in an unfrequented corner of the deck, I took the packet from my pocket and handed it to her. ”You understand?” I asked.
”Yes, I understand. And now, may I beg that for the rest of your natural life”--here she paused, and bit her lip in vexation that the unlucky phrase had escaped her--”you will speak of this no more?”
”Mrs. Boyd Madras,” I said (here she coloured indignantly),--”pardon me for using the name, but it is only this once,--I shall never speak of the matter to you again, nor to any one else, unless there is grave reason.”
We walked again in silence. Pa.s.sing the captain's cabin, we saw a number of gentlemen gathered about the door, while others were inside. We paused, to find what the incident was. Captain Ascott was reading the letter which Boyd Madras had wished to be made public. (I had given it to him just before the burial, and he was acting as though Boyd Madras was really dead--he was quite ignorant of our conspiracy.) I was about to move on, but Mrs. Falchion touched my arm. ”Wait,” she said. She stood and heard the letter through. Then we walked on, she musing.
Presently she said: ”It is a pity--a pity.”
I looked at her inquiringly, but she offered no explanation of the enigmatical words. But, at this moment, seeing Justine waiting, she excused herself, and soon I saw her listening to Moliere. Later in the day I saw her talking with Miss Treherne, and it struck me that she had never looked so beautiful as then, and that Miss Treherne had never seemed so perfect a product of a fine convention. But, watching them together, one who had had any standard of good life could never have hesitated between the two. It was plain to me that Mrs. Falchion was bent upon making a conquest of this girl who so delicately withstood her; and Belle Treherne has told me since, that, when in her presence, and listening to her, she was irresistibly drawn to her; though at the same time she saw there was some significant lack in her nature; some hardness impossible to any one who had ever known love. She also told me that on this occasion Mrs. Falchion did not mention my name, nor did she ever in their acquaintance, save in the most casual fas.h.i.+on. Her conversation with Miss Treherne was always far from petty gossip or that smart comedy in which some women tell much personal history, with the guise of badinage and bright cynicism. I confess, though, it struck me unpleasantly at the time, that this fresh, high-hearted creature should be in familiar conversation with a woman who, it seemed to me, was the incarnation of cruelty.
Mrs. Falchion subscribed most liberally to the fund raised for the children of the quartermaster and munificently to that for the crew which had, under Hungerford, performed the rescue work. The only effect of this was to deepen the belief that she was very wealthy, and could spend her money without affectation; for it was noticeable that she, of all on board, showed the least outward excitement at the time of the disaster. It occurred to me that once or twice I had seen her eyes fixed on Hungerford inquisitively, and not free from antipathy. It was something behind her usual equanimity. Her intuitive observation had led her to trace his hand in recent events. Yet I know she admired him too for his brave conduct. The day following the tragedy we were seated at dinner. The captain and most of the officers had risen, but Mrs.
Falchion, having come in late, was still eating, and I remained seated also. Hungerford approached me, apologising for the interruption. He remarked that he was going on the bridge, and wished to say something to me before he went. It was an official matter, to which Mrs. Falchion apparently did not listen. When he was about to turn away, he bowed to her rather distantly; but she looked up at him and said, with an equivocal smile:
”Mr. Hungerford, we often respect brave men whom we do not like.”
Then he, understanding her, but refusing to recognise the compliment, not altogether churlishly replied: ”And I might say the same of women, Mrs. Falchion; but there are many women we dislike who are not brave.”
”I think I could recognise a brave man without seeing his bravery,” she urged.
”But I am a blundering sailor,” he rejoined, ”who only believes his eyes.”
”You are young yet,” she replied.
”I shall be older to-morrow,” was his retort.
”Well, perhaps you will see better to-morrow,” she rejoined, with indolent irony.
”If I do, I'll acknowledge it,” he added. Then Hungerford smiled at me inscrutably. We two held a strange secret.
CHAPTER VIII. A BRIDGE OF PERIL
No more delightful experience may be had than to wake up in the harbour of Aden some fine morning--it is always fine there--and get the first impression of that mighty fortress, with its thousand iron eyes, in strong repose by the Arabian Sea. Overhead was the cloudless sun, and everywhere the tremulous glare of a sandy sh.o.r.e and the creamy wash of the sea, like fusing opals. A tiny Mohammedan mosque stood gracefully where the ocean almost washed its steps, and the Resident's house, far up the hard hillside, looked down upon the harbour from a green coolness. The place had a ma.s.sive, war-like character. Here was a battery with earthworks; there, a fort; beyond, a signal-staff.
Hospitals, hotels, and stores were incidents in the picture. Beyond the mountain-wall and lofty Jebel Shamsan, rising in fine pink and bronze, and at the end of a high-walled path between the great hills, lay the town of Aden proper. Above the town again were the mighty Tanks, formed out of clefts in the mountains, and built in the times when the Phoenicians made Aden a great mart, the richest spot in all Arabia.
Over to the left, on the opposite side of the harbour, were wide bungalows s.h.i.+ning in the sun, and flanking the side of the ancient aqueduct, the gigantic tomb of an Arab sheikh. In the harbour were the men-of-war of all nations, and Arab dhows sailed slowly in, laden with pilgrims for Mecca--ma.s.ses of picturesque sloth and dirt--and disease also; for more than one vessel flew the yellow flag. As we looked, a British man-of-war entered the gates of the harbour in the rosy light.
It was bringing back the disabled and wounded from a battle, in which a handful of British soldiers were set to punish thirty times their number in an unknown country. But there was another man-of-war in port with which we were familiar. We pa.s.sed it far out on the Indian Ocean. It again pa.s.sed us, and reached Aden before we did. The 'Porcupine' lay not far from the 'Fulvia', and as I leaned over the bulwarks, idly looking at her, a boat shot away from her side, and came towards us. As it drew near, I saw that it was filled with luggage--a naval officer's, I knew it to be. As the sailors hauled it up, I noticed that the initials upon the portmanteaus were G. R. The owner was evidently an officer going home on leave, or invalided. It did not, however, concern me, as I thought, and I turned away to look for Mr. Treherne, that I might fulfil my promise to escort his daughter and Mrs. Callendar to the general cemetery at Aden; for I knew he was not fit to do the journey, and there was nothing to prevent my going.
A few hours later I stood with Miss Treherne and Mrs. Callendar in the graveyard beside the fortress-wall, placing wreaths of artificial flowers and one or two natural roses--a chance purchase from a shop at the port--on the grave of the young journalist. Miss Treherne had brought some sketching materials, and both of us (for, as has been suggested, I had a slight gift for drawing) made sketches of the burial-place. Having done this, we moved away to other parts of the cemetery, looking at the tombstones, many of which told sad tales enough of those who died far away from home and friends. As we wandered on, I noticed a woman kneeling beside a grave. It grew upon me that the figure was familiar. Presently I saw who it was, for the face lifted. I excused myself, went over to her, and said:--”Miss Caron, you are in trouble?”
She looked up, her eyes swimming with tears and pointed to the tombstone. On it I read:
Sacred to the Memory of HECTOR CARON, Ensign in the French Navy.
Erected by his friend, Galt Roscoe, H.B.M.N.